Saving steeped Puerh?

I find I frequently have Puerh left over after a steeping session. Is there a way to keep it fresh and reuse it, say in 8-10 hours? Would refridgeration work? I share sooo many cups with the people at work.... I use a good bit of tea in the pot and adjust my steeping times accordingly. At home I use less tea (and make a pitcher of iced tea after).I obviously need to get a scale!

I use a yixing pot and tip the spout in a cup to drain excess liquid out. I can always get an extra day from it and sometime two days. Spout in the cup drains away the liquid to keep it from getting diluted. Happy Thanksgiving all!

LEOSCAT wrote:I find I frequently have Puerh left over after a steeping session. Is there a way to keep it fresh and reuse it, say in 8-10 hours? Would refridgeration work? I share sooo many cups with the people at work.... I use a good bit of tea in the pot and adjust my steeping times accordingly. At home I use less tea (and make a pitcher of iced tea after).I obviously need to get a scale!

Thanks again for the help and patience,Lisa

I frequently resteep Puerh that I steeped before work. I brew a large, conventional teapot in the morning, then bring the tea to work. The tea itself does not touch the bottom of the pot because it has a brewing basket. When I get home I make an iced tea out of the large pot. It should not be a problem to resteep the tea the next day. The hard part of this is finding a Puerh that is good iced.

If you have it in a pot make sure you leave it open so that it dries out or you will be rewarded with a pot of mold. And dont forget about it either, make sure you dump it out if you dont resteep the next day.

Emmett wrote:If you have it in a pot make sure you leave it open so that it dries out or you will be rewarded with a pot of mold. And dont forget about it either, make sure you dump it out if you dont resteep the next day.

I never resteep the next day anyway, always the later in the same day, and the tea pot I use doesn't seal completely anyway (its a large 64oz iced tea pot from teavana that is the only thing I have large enough to brew enough tea to fill my thermos).

Emmett wrote:If you have it in a pot make sure you leave it open so that it dries out or you will be rewarded with a pot of mold. And dont forget about it either, make sure you dump it out if you dont resteep the next day.

Leave it for a next day and the mold grows? Nah..that doesn't happen often..

What? Don't leave it open, that will hasten the mold to grow by allowing spores in the air to settle in the pot and grow. If you keep the lid on the pot after steeping, you've basically sterilized everything in the pot (from the boiling water).

Drax wrote:...you keep the lid on the pot after steeping, you've basically sterilized everything in the pot (from the boiling water).

That's why I don't worry about it too much--it has been hit with boiling water, and gets hit again with boiling water before I drink from it again. There aren't a lot of pathogens that survive boiling or just off boiling temperatures, and the most dangerous (botulism) needs anaerobic conditions that are very unlikely to be found in the average teapot with some damp leaves in it.

Drax wrote:What? Don't leave it open, that will hasten the mold to grow by allowing spores in the air to settle in the pot and grow. If you keep the lid on the pot after steeping, you've basically sterilized everything in the pot (from the boiling water).

True I always leave it covered. I think what works best for this may depend on what climate you live in.

Again, closed lid does not work for me. I have many pots that I use and I am very busy, so sometimes I can forget a pot has tea in it if I leave it closed, and a couple days later when I go to use it I am rewarded with moldy tea. So I always leave mine open, so first it dries out and second I know there is tea in there. Just my personal experience though. To all his own... Do what works for you. Listen to the tea masters and not me, I am merely a tea drinker.